Thousands of Cubans keep satellite dishes hidden from authorities

RAY SANCHEZ CUBA NOTEBOOK

April 19, 2009|By Ray Sanchez Havana Bureau

HAVANA — The DirecTV satellite dish, propped up by a pair of old 15-pound weights, stands by an open window in an apartment in the Vedado neighborhood. The dish is aimed north at the gray sky above the seaside Malecon, in a country where satellite TV is off limits to ordinary citizens.

An overweight house cat sometimes knocks it out of place, interrupting the signal during crucial moments in Camila's favorite Brazilian soap, Nina Mosa.

"I want to hurl him out the window," said Camila, who didn't want her full name used because of her illegal hookup. "For many people, I know that soap opera is a highlight of the day."

While Washington has now authorized satellite radio and television service links with the island, many Cubans doubt the communist state will allow a greater flow of information. Authorities restrict satellite TV and Internet services, so many hookups are illegal and signals pirated.

Concealed on rooftops, balconies or just inside opened windows throughout the capital, thousands of illegal satellite antennas have become a way for Cubans to circumvent the government's tight grip on entertainment and information.

The state has justified repeated crackdowns on illegal hookups on grounds that programming by U.S.-financed TV Marti and some Miami-based commercial Spanish-language stations was "destabilizing and interventionist and . . . aimed at destroying the revolution and with it the Cuban nation."

Still, the Obama administration said U.S. companies will now be allowed to set up fiber-optic cable and satellite links with Cuba, start roaming service agreements and permit U.S. residents to pay for satellite radio and television services for Cubans on the island. Of course, Cuba's approval would be needed.

"I don't see it happening," Camila said. "The state will give up some control, but the access to the outside world that you get from satellite TV doesn't help them. It only awakens us to how different we live from the rest of the world."

Camila pays a little more than $10 a month for a pirated card that activates her satellite service. She said she relies on it for Spanish-language variety shows and soap operas to counter the lack of alternatives on Cuba's five TV networks. But she admitted there was programming on her two Miami-based satellite channels with a distinct anti-Castro slant that the state would never allow Cubans to watch. One recent news talk show featured interviews with the former decorator for President Raul Castro and his daughter Mariela. The guest spoke about the Castros' lavish lifestyle.

Authorities say between 10,000 and 30,000 illegal satellite dishes operate throughout Cuba. Many programs are often recorded, with the tapes and CDs distributed from person to person.

"I sometimes tape soap operas and American TV series for the wife of a top Communist Party official in Havana," Camila said. "You think he doesn't know where his nightly entertainment is coming from?"